her dress.

The farmers are wide awake now. Those who dare, leave their horses
and go among the crowd; the others choose their laborers with their
eyes, and call them up. Each one takes his man's measure--width
of chest, modest manner, wretchedness; but they are afraid of the
scarred and malicious faces, and leave them to the bailiffs on the
large farms. Offers are made and conditions fixed, and every minute
one or two Swedes climb up into the hay in the back of some cart,
and are driven off.

A little on one side stood an elderly, bent little man with a sack
upon his back, holding a boy of eight or nine by the hand; beside
them lay a green chest. They eagerly watched the proceedings, and
each time a cart drove off with some of their countrymen, the boy
pulled impatiently at the hand of the old man, who answered by a
reassuring word. The old man examined the farmers one by one with
an anxious air, moving his lips as he did so: he was thinking. His
red, lashless eyes kept watering with the prolonged staring, and
he wiped them with the mouth of the coarse dirty sack.

"Do you see that one there?" he suddenly asked the boy, pointing
to a fat little farmer with apple-cheeks. "I should think he'd be
kind to children. Shall we try him, laddie?"

The boy nodded gravely, and they made straight for the farmer. But
when he had heard that they were to go together, he would not take
them; the boy was far too little to earn his keep. And it was the
same thing every time.